John Noble Wilford

John Noble Wilford retired as a senior science correspondent for The New York Times. He covered all the Apollo missions for The Times, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for articles on science and planetary exploration, and in 1987 shared another Pulitzer with colleagues for coverage of the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Before joining The Times in 1965, Wilford worked for The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine. He is the author of "We Reach the Moon," "The Mapmakers," "Mars Beckons," "The Mysterious History of Columbus, " and co-author or editor of other books, including "Cosmic Dispatches."

November 18, 2014, Tuesday

The skull fossil is from a newly discovered extinct species, Vintana, similar to groundhogs, that lived in the time of the dinosaurs, and is only the third mammal fossil found in the Southern Hemisphere.

February 11, 2014, Tuesday

Based on fossils of Tiktaalik roseae, a transitional species that lived 375 million years ago, scientists have concluded that the modification of fins into four limbs began before vertebrates left the water.